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WBMW

Mother, Mothering and Motherhood...

I don't write nearly as much here on WBMW as I have in years
past. Among various reasons for the decline is the time I spend hanging out
with the contributors' and community of Mormon Women Stand (which I founded a little over a year ago) organizing and mentoring the work we do as a united
voice of likeminded LDS women. It’s a different type of ‘mothering’ than being
a mom – kind of. It’s a wonderful collaboration! These incredible women who
daily inspire and teach me also mother me. I feel so blessed to be in this
stage of my life with the perspective that only years of learning and
experience can provide and with the ability to occasionally share my thoughts with
all of you.

Today, I want to share a simple testimony about motherhood
and what it means to me now, as it’s expanded over the years. Not necessarily my
feelings about being a mother as I’ve long been blessed with a clear vision of
the eternal significance of the decision I made in choosing to become a mom.

I’ve come to truly appreciate my divine nature as a female and the power that
is embodied, literally, in motherhood.
I treasure the doctrine taught in the Family Proclamation that gender is an
essential characteristic of who we have always been, male or female, and always
will be. I know, with full confidence, that I was female before I came to earth
and that I will always be a woman, thus a mother. How grateful I am for this
eternal truth, which centers my ability to understand the incessant attacks on
gender today and clearly discern from where they emanate.

Choosing to bear children and mother is often minimized and has
been as long as I can remember. I recall going to the grocery store with four
children under five and getting the look,
every mother in my same situation can relate to and that was over 30 years ago.
We haven’t been living in the 50s for a long time, where everyone generally
held mothers in high esteem.

Women of covenant must be firmly grounded in the doctrine of
motherhood if we are to withstand the buffetings of the adversary. I wrote this
article about, Mary, the Mother of Jesus, a few years ago relating to
motherhood. Today, I published a more extensive article on Mormon Women Stand: Were Women Ordained to Motherhood Before
Birth?

Mother, mothering, and
motherhood: each is a facet of the beautiful and divine nature of every
daughter of God. To separate one facet of our eternal role as women is to
minimize our divine destiny made possible through the Atonement of Jesus
Christ: eternal motherhood. The Family Proclamation
teaches the eternal and absolute doctrinal truth that gender is
eternal. Our spirits were created either male or female before our mortal
birth. Femaleness is
not a social construct but is both biologically and physiologically created and
stored in the DNA of every female soul by loving Heavenly Parents…

Today, covenant Mormon women can learn a great deal from, Mary, the mother of
the Son of God.

Her faithful
willingness to exercise complete obedience, without a full understanding of the
ramifications of her sacrifice, enabled the
oath and covenant of the priesthood to be fulfilled. As a faithful
young woman, Mary became co-creator with God in order to provide the mortal
body necessary for the Savior to accomplish the work He was sent here to do.

Is it possible that
all women were ordained to the high and holy calling of motherhood before
coming to earth? A “hood” is generally understood to be a covering, placed to
shield and protect and is firmly mounted above that which it guards. Likewise,
the female body is designed to shield, protect, and bring forth the physical
body of a male or female infant into mortality; womanhood.